Clare Curran

It seems four outages in ten weeks on Telecom's XT network isn't enough to get Communications Minister Steven Joyce concerned, Labour's Communications and IT spokesperson Clare Curran said today.

"Thousands of Kiwis who've switched to XT continue to plagued by technical problems but as yet we've have no signal from Mr Joyce that he cares enough to intervene to at least seek assurances that the faults will be properly fixed," Clare Curran said.

"All we have heard from Steven Joyce is that Telecom operates in a market environment and will no doubt want to retain customer confidence. Well, talk about stating the obvious.

"The performance of the XT network is now beyond widespread customer dissatisfaction and calls into question the reliability of some major economic infrastructure and the ability of Telecom to operate and maintain it.

"Steven Joyce must seek assurances on behalf of XT customers who rely on their mobile phones for personal, business and emergency reasons that Telecom has the situation under control."

Clare Curran says the public has every right to sceptical about the new network given its recent failures but the Government can play a major role in restoring confidence in XT.

"Telecom is a company that is tendering to roll out the Government's $1.5 billion broadband network. The Government has to have confidence that Telecom can operate its core business national network before considering it for the taxpayer funded broadband network." Clare Curran said.

"Steven Joyce needs to work on behalf of Kiwis who have had enough of XT's outages, and seek assurances from Telecom that they can clean up their act."